Monday, March 7, 2011

Taking suggestions...

We'll have our Maine and Missouri polls out starting tomorrow. On tap for this week are our national poll and one state poll. So:

-Let us know what state you'd like us to poll. We'll pick some finalists and put it to a vote starting tomorrow night and voting will be open until Wednesday night.

-Let us know who you would like to see as the bonus Republican on our national poll in addition to the usual folks we test against Barack Obama, which are Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, and Mitt Romney. The only people we won't consider are those who've been included in the last six months- that's Ron Paul, Glenn Beck, Marco Rubio, and Michele Bachmann. We'll pick finalists and have a vote on this as soon as we've wrapped up the vote for what state to poll this week. We may even poll the top two vote getters this time around.

-Also let us know any other questions you think we should ask on the national poll, be they about the 2012 Presidential race or something else.

50 comments:

Anonymous
said...

I'd really like to see Ohio for your next poll. It will be very interesting to see how popular Gov Kasich's anti-collective bargaining proposals are, given that the Democrats and unions are saying that they may push to submit those proposals to a referendum. Also Sherrod Brown's reelection will undoubtedly be one of the big senate races to watch in 2012.

Montana would be an interesting state to poll, with Tester facing a tough race. Also, it would be interesting to see just how far Obama's approval has fallen there since 2008 and if he would have any chance of making it competitive again next year. For President, I think you gotta try Pawlenty.

For the national poll, Chris Christie. The hottest name on the Republican side of the aisle. Also, I don't know if you've done this yet, but it would be good to get another look at what that general public thinks of public-sector unions and collective bargaining.

State: Nevada. I'd like to see how Heller does in the primary field and what Dems run well against him.

Would love to see Vermont. Not just Sanders v. Salmon, but also Sanders v. ex-gov Douglas, around whom there is some speculation. Also, Gov. Shumlin up for re-election in 2012, so could test his approvals and against various opponents.

Please don't do Hawaii; that would be really boring (for one thing, we don't know who's running yet, for another, no way any Republican wins Akaka's seat... this is the state with exactly ONE Republican in the State Senate (they lost 'half' of their seats even in 2010!)

Could you also do a question of "did you vote Democratic or Republican for your Representative in 2010?" And a who would you vote for in 2012 question (idea is to figure out if the heavy swings were temporary or permanent or bit of each.) Perhaps that for state legislature too.

New Hampshire, definitely. Get the approve/disapprove numbers on the state legislature to find out just how much people are regretting staying home last November now, and state-level 'which party would you prefer to control state government.'

For a bonus Republican, how about doing something that gets a different sort of information than the immediate 'who runs best?' I'm thinking that if you polled Obama against Ronald Reagan, you'd get some very interesting data about how Reagan is viewed across party and, more significantly, generational lines. Anybody under 45 today never voted for Reagan and essentially knows him only by his mythology on the right and his actual history on the left. You'd also get some very interesting information about how he would do in a Republican primary today - he did, after all, raise taxes more than once, was responsible for Iran-Contra, and so on and so forth. He might well run poorly among those who identify as Tea Party supporters. Ultimately, I think that matchup would be a much more informative one than some third-tier potential candidate pondering a vanity campaign.

Could probably add Pawlenty for all presidential national polling going forward. He's running and takes voters away from Romney. Without including him, Romney's numbers might be a little higher than they should be.

For a one time add-on, try Trump. Not because he'll win, but because he's the only one with big time name recognition at this point. Or Christie

Montana (Tester's reelection), Connecticut (Lieberman's open seat), or Utah (Hatch's future and how much of a Romney landslide the 2012 Republican Presidential primary would be there).

Rudy Giuliani for bonus Republican.

You've polled 2012 Republican Presidential primary voters' second choices already (and I hope you do it again). I'd also like to see a primary voters' third choices--there is a reasonably good chance that at least two of the current frontrunners will ultimately decline to run, and I'd like to know what that would mean for the outcome. (For example, who would conservatives coalesce around if both Huckabee and Palin declined to run?)

I'll suggest Montana, for both the presidential and senate races; Georgia, for the presidential race; South Carolina, for the presidential race; Texas, for both the presidential and the senate races; or New Hampshire, for the presidential race.

Since gay marriage might become legal (and then might go on the ballot afterwards) here in Maryland, you should definitely do a poll of Marylanders' attitudes toward same sex marriage at some point. Please!

I see several people wanting a new poll for New Hampshire. Don't they realize you polled them in Nov. and three other polling companies have polled NH since the midterms? Romney leads by double digits in all four of the polls done by four different polling companies. We don't need another NH poll anytime soon unless there is a local election coming up.

How about one of the states you haven't polled yet like OR, ID, WY, ND, UT, KS, OK, AR, MS, AL, LA, NY, VT, GA? I realize you can't poll Indiana unless you can get some volunteers.